WASHINGTON – Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will not seek re-election next year, several news outlets are reporting this morning.

Frank's office has not yet confirmed the reports.

The Democrat chaired the financial services committee from 2007 until his party lost its House majority in the 2010 election.

Frank, first elected to Congress in 1980, is known as the coauthor of the comprehensive financial overhaul bill that Congress passed last year; the country's biggest overhaul of the banking and financial-industry regulations since the Depression. The 2010 law was aimed at preventing another meltdown of the financial services industry. It also created a new agency to protect consumers from unfair lending practices.

During his tenure, he’s expressed support for the work of credit unions and said that if all financial institutions had acted as responsibly as most credit unions did there would probably not have been a financial crisis.